The irony of prestige: Status-seeking as rational choice

Abstract

Status Symbols in World Politics reflects the established status of status research in International Relations (IR). The initial wave of studies of status generated enough theory and evidence of consequential status effects to sustain a major research program. The lens then widened to encompass status-seeking among non-great powers. With the potential importance of status established as a candidate explanation for the behavior and great and small powers alike, this special issue takes the status motivation for granted and zeroes in on the things/practices/acts that actors think generate, sustain, and signal status. The deep interpretive dive into small-s status politics presented here raises intriguing questions even for those scholars still wedded to a positivist great power agenda. Three payoffs stand out: First, status-seeking via the acquisition of status symbols can be a rational choice. Second, the collection suggests the importance of clarifying types of status symbols as well as a rough and ready method for doing so—an argument I seek to flesh out through an examination of the emerging aircraft carrier race. Third, many other important questions for further inquiry emerge, questions I doubt would have come to the fore but for the efforts of Beaumuont, Røren, and their collaborators.